This blog provides delicious,traditional, vegetarian, South Indian Recipes from my mother Chitra Amma's kitchen. There are few 'world recipes' as well!
Thanks to Shravan, Pranav, Akash, Tara, Guggs, Shankari, Adu, Dhrithi, and Appa Ramachandran for the photos!

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Wednesday, February 13, 2008

It was heart rending to watch the great old Cannon Ball tree lying on the ground like a gentle giant.

The home of a variety of birds, the trapeze enjoyed by the occasional visiting monkeys, the play ground where the chipmunks played 'catch me if you can', the sunshade which filtered the harsh sunlight and sent in a green glow into my drawing room - all was gone with a single stroke of the woodcutters axe. I felt heavy at heart as though I had lost a near and dear one in my family

A shiver ran down my spine when I realized that the second in line to fall prey to the axe was the tall coconut tree which stood in the adjoining site.

The Indian tradition reveres the coconut tree because it is 'Kalpa Vriksha' - the all giving tree. Coconut plays a prominent role in all festivities and rituals. No prayer or worship is complete without offering one or many coconuts to the deity invoked. People who built new houses incorporated the coconut trees in the building site - if there were any - in their building plans, so that they could retain them and nurture them.

Other than quenching thirst and nourishing the body with its fruit and sweet water, every other part of the tree is useful in the manufacture of various essential articles.

Whenever a coconut sapling was planted in our garden, mother fed the laborers and gave away gifts to ­them as a gesture of reverence and gratitude for having brought good luck to the house.

Plucking the full-grown coconuts from the tall tree tops is a special fete carried out by skilled labourers.Father hired them when our trees were overburdened with the yield. We children were asked to stay away inside the house, till all the coconuts were 'dropped' down, lest we got bombarded by the coconut shower.

The professional coconut tree climbers lassoed their feet with the two ends of a short rope. Hugging the tree with their hands and feet, they made an upward thrust to go up the tree, and in no time they scaled to the top.

We stored all the coconuts in a large room in our backyard. The ripe ones were shorn out of the outer tough skin and the fibers, and the edible portion was left to dry. We stored a few for our cooking, and the major portion was sent to the oil mill.

Home made coconut oil was used for massaging new borns.Grand mother extracted the milk from fresh coconut gratings. Then she boiled it in a huge pot until the oil separated from the scum. She filtered the pure oil in a clean muslin cloth and stored it in numerous bottles. She was very happy to give them away to families with new arrivals.

Grand mother prepared mouth watering coconut burfies -candy made out of fresh coconut gratings and sugar in large quantities and stored them in air tight jars. It came in handy to entertain the children who accompanied our visitors. But with us around, the burfies would not even last for a day or two.

Chutney powders, coconut chutneys, various other sweets and porridges made out of coconut , and spicy gravies were all part of our daily menu.

One of the favorite dishes which mother contrived at the sight of an unexpected guest was coconut rice. Cooking rice in coconut milk and then seasoning it is a laborious task. But here is a very simple and easy method to turn out a tasty coconut delight.

COCUNUT RICE

INGREDIENTS

Rice – 1 cup

Fresh coconut gratings – 1 cup

Cooking oil - 2 Tbsps

Ghee - ½ Tsp

Salt – 1 Tsp or to taste

FOR SEASONING :

Asafetida powder - 1 pinch

Mustard seeds -1 Tsp

Split black gram dal - 2 Tsps

Bengal gram dal - 2 Tsps

Ground nuts - 4 Tbsps

Red chillies - 4 to 6

Curry leaves – A few

Papad ( optional) – 1

Sugar - 1 pinch

METHOD:

Step -1 : Wash and cook rice with just enough water so that it does not become mushy. Allow it to cool.

Step -2: Break red chillies into small pieces. Crush papads into small bits.

Step – 3: Heat cooking oil in a pan and add mustard seeds and allow it to splutter.

1 Post your Comments:

The coconut tree is truly a Kalpavriksham .....i made coconut saadam ( aval, actually)just last night....ayyo ! it seems like ages since i had coconutburfi ! No one seems to make them except potti-kadais these days ! so sad.

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Hello

Welcome to Chitra Amma's Kitchen.

I am Dibs. I am a born Foodie. I love to cook; love to eat; love to feed folks who appreciate good food. Blogging provides me a great way of documenting my mother, Chitra’s recipes, as a ready reference irrespective which time zone I live in. Amma honestly makes the best food I've ever had, and somehow, the anecdotes she tells us, make the dishes taste all the better.Most posts here are written by my mother Chitra. It’s her recipes, along with related reminiscences of people, places and anecdotes. She writes, I post!What started for a lark, has now become a serious hobby, drawing in participation from the whole family. My father, S.R. Ramachandran has started clicking away every dish made at home! Aunts, cousins, siblings, contribute to photos, and ask for recipes.We try to illustrate implements such as utensils, grinding stones and so on from the ‘pre-electric-mixer’ days wherever possible. We hope this will make an interesting read for future generations, on how food was cooked in earlier times!The site is still in its infancy, and slowly evolving, as our skills improve! We invite your comments, ideas, and questions, and will attempt answering them.

Thank you for your visit, and we hope you enjoy your stay at Chitra Amma’s Kitchen.